Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.
Today’s episode is with Michael Silton and Alejandro Guerrero of Act One Ventures, a Los-Angeles based firm that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage .
Before becoming Managing Director of Act One, Michael was Executive Director of the UCLA VC Fund for three and half years. He was also CEO & Founder of RainMaker Systems(to which he took public) and co-founder of UniDirect Corp. Prior to being General Partner at Act One, Alejandro was Volunteer Associate at UCLA Ventures from 2013-2016, Co-Founder & CEO of Uniq Apps and Co-Founder & President of the Live Entertainment Network.
We chatted with them about their unique partnership, how they tangibly drive real diversity into cap tables, and how they navigate in today’s white-hot market.
A message from our sponsor
Anduin is revolutionizing fund management with streamlined fund operations, digitized fund subscriptions, and real-time status updates.
Traditional, paper-based subscriptions are costly, tedious and error-prone, with up to 80% of submitted documents being incorrect and considered not in good order.
Fund managers lack real-time visibility, facing manual processes, endless back-and-forth and a mountain of emails, documents and spreadsheets.
Anduin’s investor onboarding workflow improves the investor experience, bringing clarity, guidance, and efficiency to fund subscriptions which drastically reduces error rates.
The Anduin platform allows GPs to perform fund operations simply and efficiently with improved data accuracy, freeing up time so they can focus on what they do best... investing.
For more information, or to arrange a demo, visit fundsub.io/ventureunlocked
In this episode we discuss:
02:15 How the team got into investing
05:22 Why Michael started an independent firm, after so many years as an operator
13:10 Key lessons learned from raising their first fund
15:11 Staying positive when fundraising is going slow
22:53 The Act One Ventures investment model
26:34 Why learning from failures is a superpower
29:18 How their unique differences as a partnership drive value to founders
38:35 The Diversity Rider; What it means and why is it critical for the future of underrepresented GPs and founders.
Mentioned in this episode
Act One Ventures
I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Michael and Alejandro. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.
Act One Ventures Silton and Guerrero on the Diversity Rider initiative, building meaningful partnerships, and operating experience has been key to their model